New NNLM PSR Consumer Health Librarian: Nora Franco!

Posted by Nora Franco on August 10th, 2018 Posted in: Announcements, Consumer Health, General, Membership, Outreach, RML Staff
Tags: Announcements, health sciences librarianship

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Hola! My name is Nora Franco, and I would like to say hello as the new Consumer Health Librarian for the NNLM PSR at UCLA! My passion for medical librarianship began as an LIS student at the University of North Texas, where I was first exposed to the array of librarian specializations, including health sciences librarianship. While in the Health Informatics program, I was able to complete an internship at the Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC), part of the Specialized Information Services (SIS) division at NLM. Joining the PSR team makes me feel things have come full circle!

I come to the West Coast after living on no coast, AKA the Midwest, working as an embedded Clinical Medical Librarian for the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) Health Sciences Library. For anyone unfamiliar with the history of Clinical Medical Librarians, the program began nationally at UMKC through a National Library of Medicine grant. While in Kansas City, I worked closely with the School of Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy constituents. One of my favorite instructional sessions that I developed was a Consumer Health Information Resources course for the Drug Information Center. Not only was I able to expose pharmacy residents to quality health information resources, including NLM products, but I was able to learn about provider-patient communication, and how medical librarians can facilitate the development of them. Other activities while at UMKC and Kansas City include:

• Re-activating the UMKC Women of Color Affinity Group.
• Creation of a Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Reading List as a partnership between the Division of Diversity and Inclusion and the Libraries.
• Presenting on Navigating Health Information in Order to Self-Advocate at the Women of Color Leadership Conference.
• Beginning volunteer work for Free Citizenship Application Assistance with El Centro Promotoras de Salud in Kansas City, KS.

I am very fortunate and excited to work closely alongside other PSR staff members, particularly Kelli Ham, former PSR Consumer Health Librarian. While Kelli takes on her new position with the All of Us Research Program, I will assist her in many of her outreach efforts. Feel free to reach out to me with questions or to get to know me better by sending an email message, or giving me a call at 310-794-6572. I look forward to meeting and learning from the variety of PSR Network members!